Advice needed

[tennisfan]

I'm hoping to go to the 1st stage of the Tour de France at the weekend as it is coming by where I live.

I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips of taking good shots of cyclists.

I know how to take basic action shots but am hoping for something a bit better.

I have a Canon EOS 300D, with a 18-55mm lens.

Thanks:thumbsup2

[tinksdad]

I'm hoping to go to the 1st stage of the Tour de France at the weekend as it is coming by where I live.

I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips of taking good shots of cyclists.

I know how to take basic action shots but am hoping for something a bit better.

I have a Canon EOS 300D, with a 18-55mm lens.

Thanks:thumbsup2

The best advice I can give you is to pre-focus and meter. Pick a spot in the road that will cover the cyclists and when they reach that spot, fire away. Set your camera to continuous focus mode, and select the shutter priority with higher speeds to catch the action. If you're set up then and ready when they pass, you'll be more happy with the shots.

[Furgus]

Go out to the street before you go and try to work on your panning. Great way to show the rider in focus but also get a feeling how fast they are going.

[Groucho]

The best advice I can give you is to pre-focus and meter. Pick a spot in the road that will cover the cyclists and when they reach that spot, fire away. Set your camera to continuous focus mode, and select the shutter priority with higher speeds to catch the action. If you're set up then and ready when they pass, you'll be more happy with the shots.
I'm confused by your recommendation. Are you suggesting pre-focusing (either manually focusing or AF lock), or continuous focus?

I would agree with the former, unless you really have a lot of confidence in the continuous AF. No matter how good a system it, it never truly knows just what you're trying to focus on as well as you do, and if you find a good angle, you can manually focus on that spot and get good results. This has worked well for me for motorsports in the past, it should work pretty well for cycling too, I should thing.

I assume that this event will probably be during the day... so you'll have bright sunshine (or whatever passes for bright sunshine in the UK ;) ), you should be able to get away with a fairly small aperture, say F8 or F11 - this will make it easier to capture good focus thanks to a larger depth of field.

[tennisfan]

Thanks for all your suggestions & advice. I will hopefully post some of the photos on Sunday:thumbsup2